A new take on The Fly has been in development for a long time at 20th Century Fox and it’s finally found a director.
Deadline reports that JD Dillard will step behind the camera for the latest version of the tale of an unfortunate scientist and his drastically changing biology.
Dillard is the up and coming filmmaker behind Sundance hit Sleight, and he’s in negotiations to direct and co-write with his regular collaborator Alex Theurer. Their previous movie is a blend of sci-fi and drama about a street magician forced to take drastic steps to rescue his kidnapped sister, and it’s set for an April release in the US courtesy of Blumhouse. His next film, Kiersey Clemons-starring horror Sweetheart, is also in pre-production at Blumhouse,
The original version of The Fly was released in 1958, directed by Kurt Nuemann and starring David Hedison, Patricia Owens and Vincent Price. It was based on the story by George Langelaan, and provided the basis for Return Of The Fly (1959) and Curse Of The Fly (1965).
Of course, the best-known, and best, take on the material is David Cronenberg’s 1986 classic, starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis. The blend of squishy, gooey, truly revolting body horror and a tragic love story between doomed scientist Seth Brundle and journalist Veronia Quafe remains one of the filmmaker’s finest efforts, bringing his sensibilities to a big budget studio film to make something truly special. There’s a sequel to that too, but we don’t really talk about it.
So, the question is: what will Dillard’s version of The Fly look like? Will his and Theurer’s screenplay take a different approach to the material, or will they use the same body horror/romance angle as Cronenberg and Charles Edward Pogue’s script? And will it be another step forward for the story, or will we have to dump it in the Brundle Museum Of Natural History? We’ll be interested to find out.
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